This section will examine the policy implementation at the administrative level along with the emerging practices relating to the enactment of KSSR in terms of pedagogy and assessment. 6.3.1 Administrative level
The organization chart and the teachers’ timetable are displayed on the wall inside the staff room and also in the administration office. The chart showed the flow of the SBA implementation process from the individual education authorities to each subject Head in the school. The wall in the staff room was fully used as an information centre where all of the important information relating to the school was posted. This school appears to regard the new curriculum as being very important; they display all aspects of the changes mandated by the policy to be easily seen, not only by the administrators and teachers, but by everyone who comes to this school. Therefore, this indicates that the potential to miss any recent information about the policy is unlikely to happen. It also provides a clear picture that every member of the school staff knows their own roles and responsibilities for the implementation of the new policy. It also provides evidence of the school’s obligation to display the organization chart, which is one of the criteria stipulated in the leadership dimension under the SPIn measurement.
All pupils were registered in the School-Based Assessment Management System (SBAMS) for SBA and in the School Exam Analysis System (SEAS) for internal exams, as required by the MOE. The results of SBA are recorded offline in SBAMS, four times a year. Because this small school has a small number of teachers, the English Head also holds the role of the SBA Coordinator. The teaching timetable in this school also confirms the change in time allocation to teach English for 300 minutes per week for both lower primary and upper primary, according to the KSSR requirement. It is interesting to note that the main timetable for the whole school was not only displayed on the wall of the administration office and staff room,
but as a leader, as the Head teacher attempted to infuse within the school culture. In addition, most of the time I was the only one in the staff room because the teachers spent all of their time in the classroom, or devoted their time to recording other school documentation or marking their pupils’ work.
6.3.2 Teachers’ School-Based Assessment (SBA) and pedagogical practices
Similar to the first school, each teacher in this school has two files in which they store the record of their pupils’ progress in SBA and the pupils’ achievement in summative assessment (internal exams). A summary of the overall performance is also prepared by each subject teacher and is given to the subject Heads, and later all of the subject Heads send a copy of the summaries of the pupils’ assessment records to be compiled by the SBA Coordinator. However, for this school, there is a special room where the files and pupils’ assessment records specific to SBA are kept. The rationale for adopting this practice was to make it easier for the administrator to check the file at any time and also for easy reference when there is an inspection from the District Education or State Education Departments. This school is regarded as ‘sekolah contoh’ or a school acknowledged by the District Education Office to act as an exemplar for the systematic filing system they developed to document assessment according to the KSSR. Every teacher has permission to access the KSSR file room; therefore, each teacher can update the KSSR document at any time, without having to wait for the deadline to submit marks for the SBA.
Based on the curriculum language used by teachers in the interview data below, it can be inferred that teachers appear to be engaged with the new assessment system.
The assessment in KSSR is continuous and every time after finishing a topic, pupils will be assessed.
(Farah)
In KSSR, assessment is done continuously and we need to record it four times in a year. The lesson plan is also more focused and pupils will be assessed according to the skills which are already stated in the textbook.
The assessment in the new curriculum is using a band whereas the previous one is using grades. It required us to assess our pupils in a daily basis.
(Wahid)
It is interesting to note that none of the teachers has mentioned that the SBA employs both formative and summative assessment in promoting pupils’ learning and to gauge and enhance pupils’ performance. They did talk about the distinction between the two assessments, but the interview data indicate that they did not seem to see the purpose and the outcome that these formative assessments have on pupils’ learning. For example, Farah seemed to perceive that the new assessment system is simply used to record pupils’ performance rather than to help improve their future learning. This shows a lack of understanding about the English KSSR and its relation to SBA, and also a lack of clarity on the Performance Standards Framework document (Ministry of Education, 2011c) that is used as a reference to assess pupils. However, as mentioned earlier in Section 1.3, these two documents were prepared by different government bodies, and the training programmes relating to the use of these two documents were also conducted separately. This resulted in creating confusion about how the policy documents are related. The interview extract from Wahid above indicates his misconception about KSSR and SBA, upholding the principle that, in KSSR, there is only one form of assessment, and that is formative assessment. Wahid seems to have a lack of clarity about the underlying principles of English KSSR and the concept of SBA and its relation to English KSSR. The English KSSR document outlined the content standards and learning standards in the English KSSR document. The SBA document outlined the Performance Standards, and is used as a reference for teachers to assess pupils according to criteria stipulated in the English KSSR document. Again, this confusion derived from the use of the two separate documents issued by the Ministry of Education itself, and the poor dissemination strategy used in cascading the training regarding the two policy documents.
used the term Learning Outcomes. It’s almost the same but they change the term and, for the lesson, we only need to write one skill only which is more focused.
(Jaden)
The use of technology in the teaching and learning process is one of the important criteria in the new curriculum.
(Wahid)
In addition, all the participating teachers wrote lesson plans according to the standards stipulated in the KSSR requirements. For the English subject, for instance, the lesson plan should contain all the important elements, such as the theme, topic, focus of the lesson, learning standards, content standards, list of teaching aids, and added value in that lesson, the strategy of conducting the lesson, and their reflections at the end of the lesson. As stated by the Head teacher regarding the implementation of KSSR in her school:
I assume all the teachers understand the new policy. The KSSR file is complete and up-to-date and the way they write the lesson plan is like what is required by the new policy. Every subject has a slightly different way of writing the lesson plan.
(Head teacher)
KSSR brought changes to the teaching practices, not only for the English curriculum, but also for other subjects. The interview extracts above indicate that the Head teacher knows about the pedagogical changes necessary for all subjects. The Head teacher emphasised that she normally checked the lesson plans for every teacher, focusing on how they met the requirement for the way in which they wrote the lesson plans, as every subject has slightly different requirements in the KSSR. All teachers have to submit their lesson plans on Friday each week to be checked and signed by the administrator, so normally the Head teacher will walk around the school at some point during the following week to listen for whether the teachers conducted their lessons in accordance with what has been written in their lesson plans. According to the Head teacher, she did not enter the class for these observations
of observation. She further added that, instead of wanting to be seen as a ‘boss’, she tried to act more as a leader, which meant that she would be the one who does the bulk of the work. Subsequently, she explained, the staff would eventually complete the tasks, not because they were asked to do them, but because their compliance would be derived from their own willingness to fit in with their school culture. However, this also indicates that there seems to be a tension between the collegial language she uses and the surveillance-oriented approach she takes in enforcing teachers in her school to implement the new curriculum. More evidence of this observation is presented in the following paragraphs.
The Head teacher was very proactive about the imposed changes in KSSR and showed her full support for SBA. For instance, the MOE has set specific KPIs to be achieved by all schools in the National exam and also targeted this school as a potential candidate for the Excellent School Award. However, instead of continuing with the culture of performativity, especially in academic performance, the Head teacher’s role here is seen as being very important in leading teachers to find positive motivation for their engagement with the new policy by not focusing on the school performance in the National exam. Adopting this strategy reduces the risk of stress for the teachers to perform well in preparing their pupils for the National exams. As the Head teacher explained:
Our school is targeted for higher KPI for this year and we were asked to prepare what kind of school programme to be carried out in order to achieve the target. However, as I said, I trust my teachers. I do not want to make them stress because of the KPI target. I’ve seen that in previous years, when we started the programme for excellence very early, teachers were under pressure and pupils were also tired. During the examination, pupils were seen as having lack of enthusiasm and only waiting to finish the exam. As a result, our results were among the lowest in the district. However, it gradually improved every year and this is not because of the programme but
be achieved. She therefore tried to create a stress-free school environment within which the teachers are able to work with enjoyment, thereby contributing to a positive teaching and learning context, and eventually leading to improvement in the school’s performance. The interview with the Head teacher also confirmed her commitment to the imposed curriculum change and she demonstrated her full support for the change. My field notes also recorded that the rest of the school staff seemed to be enthusiastic and committed to the change. However, the different opinions expressed about the assessment aspect provides a sense that some teachers’ existing practices and beliefs do not match the assessment aspect in the new curriculum. This clearly shows that the dictatorial practices of the Head teacher in enforcing KSSR to be effectively implemented in her school and the fact that teachers know they are being observed all the time by the administrators had led teachers to behave in ways that resemble what Perryman (2006) terms “panoptic performativity.” The following section will further examine these issues, taking into account the two levels of teachers’ engagement with the new policy, as proposed by Priestley and Minty (2013).